Sorry for not responding sooner. Lemme guess? You once played and toured, did album art (recall the first Smashing Pumpkins EP on orange vinyl?). and you've been to big gigs. RU now only PR as the last gig you mentioned? Perhaps in a mid-level gig you hate because whatever creative process you had is gone?

Divorced? Alone? Not judging, but your endeavors elapse time. Read "Death of a Salesman" again, and Twain becomes the objective antagonist you never noticed,

You love the arts, and your tastes are antiquated enough to make you a has-been in that field. You still love music, but it's an outlet rather than a resource.

You are 37, mixed race as white, doing a 9-5 gig for which you would kill the boss just to see you doing something worthwhile.

I'm in my mid-40s, just plain caucasian, and a divorced father of two little ones. I still play music and make art: for bands, other projects, and for my own personal gratification. I definitely don't have the same attitude or expectations (of myself or the world) that I did ten years ago. I'm proud of what I've done but don't kid myself that it matters much to the world at large. This is a very incomplete collection of some of my stuff.

I am a mid-level 9-5 guy but that probably has more to do with the fact that I didn't get a "real" job-- i.e. work for someone else or a company-- until into my 30's. What I do for work is not directly creative but that doesn't bug me. I'm in Marketing. I know that creative work is still work. Even being in a band or making music for a living only affords an artist to focus on art part of the time. It's still a slog, still work.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LiXg_70rMeM <the 'leader' is Spike Jonze hizself> This is the coolest dance vid, as EVEN IF IT'S AN ACT those involved seem to be meaning it and having a great time. And it's an incerdibly cool vid of a flash mob random dance that beats the shit out of most other orchestrations.

Still working my way through this great music share-out, but here’s a few thoughts so far (not that you asked for my notes…)

Big StarUndeniable band. I love all eras of Alex Chilton, even as I still dig into all the music he made. I love Big Star and also Chris Bell’s I am The Cosmos. I think it’s the draw of an artist that was unable to either find an audience or it was just the wrong moment somehow. There’s a new collection of Bell’s solo work before and after Big Star that I want to track down.

Roy HarperNot previously familiar but both these songs are excellent and now I need to do some further investigation. Excellent playing and writing. Hallucinating Light feels particularly like the kind of song that Donovan might jam on with VU.

Mallard Again, not a group I was familiar with but a great sound. Clearly incredible musicianship. I really dig this kind of spacious relaxed jazz-rock even if I don’t know much of it.

MinutemenCan’t argue with them and wouldn’t want to. One of my all time favorites. Impossible to not be inspired by them. Meeting Mike Watt, it’s clear that he’s still got the same kinetic boisterous energy he did in that band and still loves and misses his best friend. Did you see We Jam Econo and if so, what did you think?

XTCYes! One of the groups that fueled my burgeoning anglophilia as a pre-teen looking for some kind of direction on the left end of the radio dial, late weekend nights alone discovering and taping music off the radio. Also a fan of Partridge’s Barrett and Wilson-inspired Dukes of Stratosphere albums.

London CallingMy top track is always Stay Free but I’m a sucker for Mick Jones’ melancholy kitchen sink drama punk tunes, but this whole album is great. I’ve got friends that dismiss the Clash but I love it all. Your story of Paul painting in the rain is kind of a perfect example of just how cool all of them were / are.

Bob and RayHow did I know nothing about this? I feel like i have some homework to do. Now, if you were to ask me about Derek & Clive, I would not be quite as clueless.

FlatlandersThis is more proof that despite seeking out all manner of music, there’s still so much to listen to and understand.

Nick LoweContinuing the theme from above. Even with an artist I count as a favorite, there’s more to discover.

James McMurtyDon’t know anything about this guy but the lyrics are spot-on and you can’t argue with that guitar playing.

Nikki said Big Star was his brother, Epic Soundtracks, fave band, which was why I as sending Nikki my Big Star/related outtakes. I have tons, but know more are around. Nikki died weeks later on tour, and I was his mis-manager.

Roy HarperNot previously familiar but both these songs are excellent and now I need to do some further investigation. Excellent playing and writing. Hallucinating Light feels particularly like the kind of song that Donovan might jam on with VU.

On Hallucinating Light, the album HQ, he was playing with Jimmy Page, Keith Moon, Dave Gilmour, Chris Spedding (!!), Bill Bruford (!!!), and others.

XTCYes! One of the groups that fueled my burgeoning anglophilia as a pre-teen looking for some kind of direction on the left end of the radio dial, late weekend nights alone discovering and taping music off the radio. Also a fan of Partridge’s Barrett and Wilson-inspired Dukes of Stratosphere albums.

Can't argue that. I bought BLACK SEA in the black trash bag and turned everyone on I can since. Even the Monkees latest sounded like a new Dukes song, until I learned Partridge wrote "You Bring the Summer" specifically for last years' new Monkees album, a top-ten for Rolling Stone!

I’ve got friends that dismiss the Clash but I love it all. Your story of Paul painting in the rain is kind of a perfect example of just how cool all of them were / are.

Friends? My friends Q whether the Jam were punk, NEVER the Clash! Sure, I know their story, but what they did proves their lobby.

Derek & Clive, I would not be quite as clueless.

D&C were as useless as most UK radio- very trite, even though Peter Cook ran the Private Eye print mag- it took YONKS for Cook and Moore to find fame, and they only did so after breaking up.

Look at the college schools of humor, D&C never got the brush, say, the Goons did, but the Goons WAS Python before TV. The makeup of that FOUR MAN TEAM, not Peter Sellers AND Spike Milligan AND OTHERS... was universally acclaimed by anyone with a sense of humor willing to pull the 2x4x10 out of their ass over WWII. And it was movie studios like Ealing who led the way for radio to go from redundantly conservative to D&C, AT LAST THE 1940 SHOW!, etc. Much more to D&C than D&C. Cambridge Footlights, almost all.

FlatlandersThis is more proof that despite seeking out all manner of music, there’s still so much to listen to and understand.

Formed around 1970. Joe Ely, Jimmie Dale Gilmore, Butch Hancock. All great friends and family. They reformed for the Ronnie Lane film debut and to push Jewish Cowboy Prince, Kinky Friedman, as Tx Governor candidate. Butch debuted a scathing review of George Bush Jr in a song that rivals the most angry and pithiest of Dylan.

Nick LoweContinuing the theme from above. Even with an artist I count as a favorite, there’s more to discover.

Look him up, he's England's best songwriter and, still, Johnny Cash's step-son. The latter is enough to make you wonder why Johnny took so long to sing a song by Nick.

James McMurtyDon’t know anything about this guy but the lyrics are spot-on and you can’t argue with that guitar playing.

His dad is the author, Larry McMurtry. His rhythm section, for decades, was Daren Hess and Ronnie Johnson, who backed Ronnie Lane as his rhythm section in Austin as the US version of Slim Chance, with Alejandro Escovedo as bandleader and Joe Ely as lead guitarist.

James writes novels in a seven minute span. Larry is known for:

HudTerms of EndearmentBrokeback MountainThe Last Picture Show seriesLONESOME DOVEThe Murder of Mary PhagaN\N

I went into a used CD store in Burbank one day- found a load of cewl there- and saw the Larry McMurtry disc. I judged the album by the cover AND NAME, and listened to the first cut while there. You could take a CD or vinyl and they's put you on earphones, like real music stores, to hear the disk.

The first song began with, "Terry's off the tracks. Has been, and he won't be back for a while" I bought the album for that alone.

Later I learned McMurtry heritage. The second time I saw them live was in SLC, and I not only helped them orchestrate their final shows at the Zephyr Club, I photographed the shows and also put them live on the local REAL radio station. That version of "Choctaw Bingo" was voted third best of all live performances that year.

I was told never to ask James about the song that sold me on his first effort. "Leave it alone, it's a trigger"

"So, James, I hear you hate the mention of Terry. Well, that is the first song I heard of yours and I think it's perfect."

"Well, the label didn't agree."

"Fuck the label."

"Agreed"

Memo from TurnerI only know the version from Performance. This rules.

I have so many bootlegs, this rules Absolutely Nothing. Stones boots are a fart in the wind.

Moby GrapeJust unfuckwithable. So great, as is Skip Spence’s Oar.

Skip Spence was the original drummer in Jefferson Aerpalane, then helps MG? Every member could play and sing and write? The best band nobody ever heard of.

My hero from Python, Graham Chapman, told me he was least comfortable with format jokes, where it was scripted and supposedly funny no matter the drunk who told it. Where the punchline was written before the audience could disagree.Graham Chapman, master of wit and drink, went on to say that formal jokes kill wit. I fully agree. Why not, i'm drinking Graham's urine...

I asked Graham about his first joke and he quite soberly destroyed all moronic merit found in UK crust. I recall asking the same Q to Terry Jones, and he said it was moving his tray so his gran poured custard on his mat rather than his dessert. Graham "wrote" with John Cleese, yet all that tall bald bastard belches about is Fawlty humor. Graham Chapma, if you had the guts to wait for the worthless fuck, was the best writer and actor in Python. His are the jokes for which Cleese now apologizes.

Graham is true, and most US TV is trite shit.

Wow, no wonder I despise FRIENDS. The punchline was written before the audience ever arrived.

I asked Graham what his worst interview Q was, and he said, "Thankfully, you haven't asked it."